Data communications over a variety of networks, such as packet-based networks, mobile telephone networks and others have increased at an astonishing rate over recent years. The affordability and availability of computers, telephones, wireless devices and other network access appliances has made their use prevalent in a variety of applications. Further, as the demand for network access devices has increased, the diversity in types of network access appliances has also increased, with different devices often implementing different protocols and performance-based operational characteristics.
As access to packet-based networks such as the Internet becomes easier, convenient and readily available, these networks are increasingly used for transferring data such as images, audio, email, video and text. In this regard, the number of network subscribers, data providers, and requests by those subscribers for data transfer, streaming data and other content are growing exponentially. Users are increasingly relying upon such networks for data transfer, and are further placing higher expectations on their ability to access content at different locations using different network access devices in a flexible, controllable manner.
Content (e.g., audio, images or video) has evolved in application and is readily stored electronically and is transferable over packet-based networks as described above. For example, the storage of music and/or video in rewritable electronic media has become a popular method in which to maintain and access media collections. Another example involves video applications, where digital recording and storage of television and personal video collections has become popular, as has the streaming (via the Internet) of audio and video. Photos are also often stored and accessed electronically.
In many applications, access to data or other content by users owning or subscribing to the data is desirably flexible and controllable by such users. For example, owners of digital audio content often desire access to their content from a variety of different devices, such as a personal audio player, an automobile audio system, or a home audio system. However, previous systems and approaches for network data transfer are generally limited in their ability to meet demands for flexible, controllable access to data or other content in a reliable, secure, efficient and affordable manner. In addition, such systems and approaches have been generally limited in their ability to facilitate access to a multitude of different types of content using different devices.
As applicable to conventional documents and other types of data (e.g., text-based documents, spreadsheets or presentations), the demand for flexible and efficient access to such data has also grown. For example, many workplaces have become increasingly mobile; employees are often working from a remote location such as at home or at traveling locations. Access to data from remote locations has been particularly useful for facilitating mobility while maintaining a desirable level of access to information. However, the growing size of data files desirably transferred to facilitate mobility or to otherwise provide flexible data access has presented challenges to the delivery of such data over communications channels. For instance, email is generally limited in its ability to transfer large data files, such as audio, video, text and presentation files.
Another challenge to data transfer and management stems from the existence of a myriad of different types of data, as well as different types of data access appliances. For example, a variety of different data types are implemented for storing audio files. Often, these data types are associated with a particular type of digital audio device that is being used for playback. In addition, with each data type, there are often different manners in which the data is stored, typically involving different levels of quality (e.g., with different playback bitrates). In this regard, a digital audio player must not only have access to data but also have access to data in a particular format.
Effectively and efficiently making content and other data readily accessible has been challenging in the face of the advancement of technologies and trade channels that use or could use network-based data transfer.